obama can come to them and say here's the tax cut for all income, $250,000 less. are you for or against it. that's an incentive for them to wait. >> the democrats still feel like they have a lot of leverage politically and strategy-wise and going into the new year is not that bad for democrats. it's bad for real americans. let's go back to the tax. your paycheck is going down 2%. everyone's taxes go up. it will really have an effect is when people get their first paycheck in january and the christmas bills are due, the average working class family will have their paycheck drop not 2% but closer to 5%. democrats see it as leverage, but it hurts real people for the short-term. >> when you talk about it, absolutely. if we go over the cliff without changing anything, this will be the end of unemployment benefits for more than two million americans. people who cannot wait a couple of months to get the money back and don't have the safety net. this is a very serious situation for some americans. on this show we have a slope and not a cliff. for some it is an immediate p